Earlier this month, US Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos stated that she intends to rescind Obama-era policies addressing the way Title IX should be used to adjudicate college campus sexual assault cases. The Obama administration policies — best expressed in the “Dear Colleague” letter that reminded educational institutions of their obligations to victims under sex discrimination law — provided hope to survivors who have too frequently had their rapes ignored and covered up by school administrators, or who have been blamed for their own victimization.

In the last decade, activists have focused heavily on the issue of rape on campus, justice for survivors, and sexual violence prevention — in 2015, a documentary called The Hunting Ground, which looked at the rape epidemic on campus and the obstacles survivors face to get justice, pushed the issue even further into public discourse. We can no longer deny that rape on campus is an epidemic. We know that the perpetrators of these crimes are not monsters, but ordinary men, and that we need not only to teach young men to fight rape culture rather than perpetuate it, but also to start holding them accountable for their behaviour.

Considering all this, why has “consent is sexy” become the dominantway to advocate against rape culture on campus?

Since its emergence, back in 2011 (notably, the same year SlutWalk launched), the slogan has taken over: it’s on posters at colleges and universities, on signs at anti-rape culture marches, and (naturally) it’s been turned into an underwear line. Even Amy Ziering, a producer on The Hunting Ground gave a talk recently at the University of Redlands called (what else?) “Consent is Sexy.” (A surprising name for the event, given that TheHuntingGround firmly demonstrated that the problem of rape on campus has nothing to do with whether or not students think consent is “sexy.”)

The aim behind the slogan makes sense — marketing something as “sexy” is an easy way to make it seem more appealing. But is the message that fighting rape culture has to be sexy in order to be successful really the most effective way to challenge male violence against women?

“Consent is sexy” started showing up on signs and bodies at SlutWalk marches early on, and was quickly popularized on college campuses, as the “no means no” model of consent education was abandoned in favour of a “yes means yes” model, grounded in the notion of affirmative consent. A US-based “sexual rights awareness” campaign called “Consent is Sexy” also launched around 2011, targeting students in high school, college, and university. The campaign aimed to promote consensual, safe, and respectful sex to students. Similar campaigns launched in Canada, India, and Australia.

While these campaigns have been effective in terms of gaining the attention of young people and the media, the question of whether “consent is sexy” could possibly challenge rape culture and the failures of college campuses to hold perpetrators to account is an important one. In particular, we need to determine whether this slogan is beneficial for women and girls, who make up the vast majority of sexual assault victims, and whether it challenges male power, the reason behind sexual assault.

Yes, consent is important. In fact, it’s mandatory in any sexual encounter. But framing this message as “sexy” not only obscures broader issues within our culture, but it promotes harmful ideas about women. Rather than challenging men who rape and the roots of rape culture, this slogan risks reinforcing the message that women, above all, need to perform “sexiness.”

The Hunting Ground is arguably the most in-depth exposé of contemporary rape culture on American colleges, and what it revealed was not that rape occurs because consent isn’t appealing enough, but because perpetrators felt they could get away with it. The problem was shown to be these men’s feelings of entitlement, exacerbated through administrators and a Greek System that systematically protects perpetrators from accountability. The biggest indicator of this entitlement is surely the high numbers of repeat offenders — something Ziering and director Kirby Dick themselves stress. In an interview at Huffington Post, Ziering refutes the idea that rape “just happens,” saying that, rather, it’s a “highly calculated, premeditated crime” and that date rape should more accurately be named “target rape.” Considering this, how will teaching young people that “consent is sexy” stop the kind of men who believe they can commit rape with impunity, especially when they have institutions and communities protecting them?

If consent really is sexy, why are some men still so interested in violating consent? Six years after “consent is sexy” entered public discourse, “revenge porn” has become a common way to target women, young men have taken up a practice called “stealthing” (wherein the condom is removed non-consensually), the porn industry is ever expanding, and older men paying young women for sex has been reframed as “sugar dating,” and potentially empowering for women.

In Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy argues that our culture “bombards [young people] with images that imply that lust is the most important appetite and hotness the most impressive virtue.” As evidenced by Gail Dines, author of Pornland, we live in a “porn culture,” meaning that hypersexualized images of women dominate in the media and girls learn to model their sexuality on pornographic ideals — ideals that reinforce the subjugation of women by positioning them as passive objects for men to dominate.

Levy’s observation, made over a decade ago, that “adolescent girls in particular” are “blitzed with cultural pressure to… seem sexy” still rings true. I was 10 years old when Female Chauvinist Pigs was published, and women my age continue to experience this cultural pressure. As the generation who grew up with social media, we have instant access to a deluge of perfectly-crafted images — not just of celebrities, but our own peers, compelling us to constantly scrutinize ourselves in comparison with each other. Celebrities like Kim Kardashian have taught us that nude selfies are cultural capital, and that displaying and being validated for displaying our sexualized bodies is “empowering” for women.

In the context of what Levy calls “raunch culture,” is “consent is sexy” really a message that young women need? They are already taught by culture and the media to perform their sexuality for the gratification of others, rather than to inhabit it authentically. Teaching them that consenting is a sexy thing to do, rather than a fundamental assertion of their own agency, does nothing to challenge that.

There are other limitations to “consent is sexy,” too. In Pornland, Dines writes of female college students in the US, who employ what they call the “hookup trick,” where they don’t groom their pubic hair before going out as a way to guard against hookups. When asked why they don’t just say “no” if they don’t feel like having sex, these young women told Dines that “once you have a few drinks in you and are at a party or a bar, it is too hard.”

In other words, consent isn’t as straightforward as we’d like it to be. Evidently, social pressures and expectations placed on young women complicate the question of what legitimate consent looks like for women under patriarchy. How does “consent is sexy” address a reality wherein debates on issues like hookup culture, “stealthing,” and “sugar dating” demonstrate that our generation doesn’t share a clear, unified idea of what constitutes consent? Teaching young women that consent is “sexy” is pointless if they’re still only consenting out of a sense of obligation or coercion. In an ideal feminist future, consent would only come from real, authentic desire. We need messages that can take us to that future by asking, “What does real bodily autonomy look like?”

“Consent is sexy” ignores the broader context in which sexual assault occurs: a hypersexualized, patriarchal culture, wherein men are socialized towards entitlement rather than accountability. When consent is presented as something simple and when sex education is reduced to a fun slogan, the systems of power that shape women’s sexuality are erased.

Historically, what has been most effective in challenging rape culture has not been reframing consent to make it sound more appealing, but a deep examination of patriarchal power structures. Sexual assault — like all male violence against women — both relies on and reinforces women’s subordination to men. During the second wave, feminists like Susan Brownmiller and Kate Millett argued that male violence against women was a political problem, rather than a personal one. Indeed, the feminist movement has interrogated the very foundations of patriarchal power as a means to address all forms of male violence. Second wave feminists created rape crisis centres and shelters for battered women. Internationally, they fought for and won important legislative reforms like the criminalization of rape in marriage, rape shield protections, and affirmative consent laws. Worldwide, more than anything else, it is the mobilization of independent feminist movements which have had the largest impact in terms of addressing violence against women.

The feminist movement also made it possible for survivors to speak out, access support, and advocate for systemic change. Indeed, Alexandra Brodsky, one of the rape survivors featured in The Hunting Ground, said it was politicizing her experience that helped her the most. Andrea Pino and Annie Clark, the victims turned activists who are the primary subjects of the documentary, offer a contemporary example of women working to stop sexual violence on campus. By filing a Title IX complaint against their colleges for failing to handle their rape cases properly, these women used the framework that second wave feminists helped implement to argue that their institutions’ failures were an issue of sex discrimination. They also formed a network of survivors to pass their knowledge onto others, and hold institutions accountable. The history of the women’s movement demonstrates that progress against sexual violence has been achieved by feminists who challenge broader power structures and the institutions which uphold them.

But while in the 70s, Millett explained that sexual domination is “perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power,” today the dominant message challenging sexual violence is “consent is sexy.” The contrast is stark. Where are the perpetrators in that message? Where are the victims? Betsy DeVos’ statement of intention demonstrates that feminists have further challenges ahead. We need to continue the strong feminist activism demonstrated in The Hunting Ground to ensure that the hard-won victories of survivors aren’t undone, and that survivors can continue to hold perpetrators, and the institutions that protect them, accountable.

Given the current situation on college campuses, education about consent is crucial for young people. Presenting consent as mandatory, rather than “sexy,” is just the start. We also need to move beyond a focus on “consent” and address the systems of power that position women and their sexuality as something to be objectified, commodified, or conquered. After all, what good is “yes means yes” if women feel like saying yes is their only option? How progressive is “consent is sexy” if young women are already conditioned to believe that “sexy” is one of the most important things they can be? And moreover, what good are these messages if men are actively looking to sexually assault women and know they’ll get away with it?

If we really want to end sexual assault and violence against women more broadly, this generation needs messages that go beyond making consent “sexy,” and instead challenge the attitudes and systems that contribute to rape culture in the first place.

Zoë Goodall is a student and writer based in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently completing her Honours at RMIT University, examining discussions relating to Indigenous women that occurred during the deliberations on Canada’s Bill C-36. She tweets infrequently at @zcgoodall.

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This doesn’t feel like it is aimed at males at all. It just seems like another mandate to women, “CONSENT, or be unsexy”.

FierceMild

Especially since we know that to casts swathes of the male population, consent isn’t sexy at all. That’s why they like porn that hurts women, that “pushes boundaries,” and that depicts sex as the violent domination of women by men. In the context of our culture ‘Consent is Sexy’ sounds, well, like a lie.

Hekate Jayne

Exactly.

I mean, every year when colleges go back into session, we get images of males holding signs up about “drop off your daughters” and such, showing that they are advertising to procure the set of fuckholes that they want, in the form of college women. We are always dick receptacles first.

To me, “consent is sexy” is just another way of males escaping responsibility by making yet another demand of us. We keep getting endless directives on how WE can somehow mitigate male sexual violence. This is just another one in a growing list.

Because asking males to change is unacceptable.

catlogic

It sounds like “be sexy by consenting, and then maybe he won’t beat you as well!”

Leo

It almost sounds like this slogan is a response to those men who complain that feminists expecting them to be sure they’re not committing rape is like, totally spoiling their spontaneity, and we’ll be wanting consent forms signed in triplicate next, it’s ruining ‘sex’ and no men will be able to have ‘sex’ (which is telling) blah blah. ‘See, not raping isn’t dull or not sex, it’s sexy!’ Why do sex pozzi LibFems always have to appease misogynistic men? (rhetorical question)

The link is borked on Safari, but damn that headline alone sums up how useless this “campaign” is.

M. Zoidberg

Pphhhhhh… Men don’t listen to women. This whole “yes is yes” business is window dressing to give women a false sense of security. But I guess a “yes” under duress looks like progress, so, here’s to pretending it’s progress!

How about, “If ‘no’ is too difficult for you, I have a knife that speaks all languages.”

(No, violence is not always the answer. Yes, a knife can most certainly be used against you. Don’t care. Just love saying it to no one in particular…)

catlogic

“Teaching young women that consent is “sexy” is pointless if they’re still only consenting out of a sense of obligation or coercion.”

Nailed it. Framing it as “sexy” only reinforces the obligation to accede to men’s sexual demands, because women (especially very young women) are required by popular culture to be sexy at all times.

None of this “consent is sexy” addresses the fact that nobody has a right to have sex. “No” needs to be the understanding, the accepted assumption, the default setting, for everyone – especially men, the vast majority of rapists.

will

“Almost where ever you look collective consciousness of material oppression is overtaken by identity apparitions.”

Exactly correct. It’s disorienting and depressing.

catlogic

Yes, the idea of enthusiasm seems to have been oh-so-mysteriously dropped from the concept.

One of the many things that irks me about this stuff is that it still puts women as passive, as gatekeepers to men’s desires. Where’s our sexual desire in this? Where is there any recognition that it may be actively engaged elsewhere, that we’re not sitting waiting to say yes or no to some dude (or any dude at all) or that we might just want to be left the hell alone?

Leo

Yes! Can you imagine this kind of messaging being used for another type of crime? Even copyright violations, which probably basically everyone does these days (…um, right? Right?), got treated with more seriousness. Even though the slogans may have been mocked, we were told we wouldn’t steal a car and shouldn’t steal a movie because it is a crime, not told that refraining from stealing movies is fun, appealing, ‘sexy’. People didn’t take it seriously, perhaps, but that was STILL not treated as an acceptable reason for it not to be acknowledged as a crime.

SpecialSnowflake

I subscribe under every single word of this article!
Great as usual!

SpecialSnowflake

I hope they won’t frame this as ‘enthusiastic consent is sexy’ though. That would be same message, i.e. women should perform enthusiastic consent because being sexy is one of the most important things for them. That phrase would sound like a doublespeak but I still think it would work really well nowadays, especially among young women. It’s really depressing to be a part of this generation.

catlogic

Yes, fixed, and thanks! That’s a damn good piece. Chilling. And what a horrible scene in that film (never heard of it before, watched it with no sound).

Anthocerotopsida

I agree, I just don’t really gaf about the law. I want men to stop raping because the thought of it is revolting, not because they’re scared of the legal consequences. Unfortunately, your approach might be more pragmatic.

ptittle

I think the ‘consent is sexy’ notion is a (misguided) (and outdated?) response to the idea that women are reluctant to say ‘yes’ because that would label them as sluts; so they say ‘no’ but mean ‘yes’ which of course opens the door to the man’s defense of ‘mistake’ (she said ‘no’ but I thought she meant ‘yes’, I thought she wanted it).

I’m currently watching 13 Reasons Why and I’m struck not only by Hannah’s self-absorption and her total buy-in to the Prince Charming thing (one gets the impression that the whole point of high school is to get sex) (I just want to scream ‘take off that nail polish, get rid of the short ‘easy access’ skirts’ and just LEARN something while you’re there!), but also by her reluctance to take the lead: if she wanted to kiss Clay, why didn’t she? That is, why did she wait for him to make the move? If she wanted Clay as her valentine, why didn’t she just tell him, just say so? (So perhaps the forementioned idea isn’t so outdated?)